Lehmann spares Yorkshire blushes

Darren Lehmann spared Yorkshire's blushing by steering them to a four-wicket victory over Bedfordshire at Luton in the third round of the Cheltenham and Gloucester Trophy.

The Australian held the batting together with a faultless 88 off 98 balls with seven boundaries and he was only out when Yorkshire were nine runs short of their target.

But it could have been a much different story without Lehmann's expertise because Yorkshire were rocking on 62 for four at one stage and looked like plunging to a humiliating defeat at the hands of the plucky Minor Counties side.

The man to do the early damage was paceman Shaun Rashid who took the first three wickets with only 41 scored and he later rounded off an excellent performance by clean bowling Lehmann.

Yorkshire's revival started when Lehmann found a reliable partner in fellow left-hander Vic Craven who helped him add 62 in 14 overs for the fifth wicket.

When Craven was caught at mid-wicket off Will Sneath in came another left-hander in Gavin Hamilton who continued to ease the pressure with some well-executed shots.

Lehmann's 50 came when he cut Sneath for his third boundary and he increased the tempo until he went for a heave at Rashid and was bowled.

Winning the toss, Bedfordshire chose to bat on a good pitch and played well for their 211 for nine but they were greatly assisted by a lot of inaccurate bowling which cost Yorkshire 24 runs in wides and 12 in no-balls.

Skipper Andy Roberts and David Clarke laid a solid foundation with a 51 stand for the second wicket and James Knott and Andy Trott boosted the total later on with 48 in nine overs for the seventh wicket.

Top scorer, with 34, was Oliver Clayson who was stumped going down the pitch to Lehmann while Ryan Sidebottom was Yorkshire's best bowler with four for 39, despite sending down two legside wides which both sped to the boundary.

Chris Silverwood and Lehmann each captured two wickets and there was a tidy 10 over stint from off-spinner Richard Dawson who went for just 39 runs in only his second competitive match.

Yorkshire now look forward to a testing encounter with Surrey at Headingley in the next round.